The Chinese Parrot (Charlie Chan Detective Series) — page 72: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

2, to try it,” the editor added. "But I hope I have more luck than the last time." "Oh—then you've seen Madden before?" Eden asked with interest. "Just once,” Holley replied. "Twelve years ago, when I was a reporter in New York. I'd managed to get into a gambling house on Forty-fourth Street, a few doors east of Delmonico's. It didn't have a very good reputation, that joint, but there was the great P.J. Madden himself, all dolled up in evening clothes, betting his head off. They said that after he'd gambled all day in Wall Street, he couldn't let it alone—hung round the roulette wheels in that house every night." "And you tried to interview him?" "I did. I was a fool kid, with lots of nerve. He had a big railroad merger in the air at the time, and I decided to ask him about it. So I went up to him during a lull in the betting. I told him I was on a newspaper—and that was as far as I got. ‘Get the hell out of here,’ he roared. 'You know I never give interviews.’ Holley laughed. "That was my first and only meeting with P.J. Madden. It wasn't a very propitious beginning, but what I started that night on Forty-fourth Street I'm going to try to finish out here tonight." They reached the top of the grade, the rocky hills dropped behind them, and they were in a mammoth doorway leading to a strange new world. Up amid the platinum stars a thin slice of moon rode high, and far 72 comiicboeoe S CO